Monday, October 22, 2012

Our Plants- Days 2- 6

Our classroom must be full of "green thumbs" because our Brassica rapas are already growing!  We planted our seeds on Tuesday, and by Wednesday night when I left school, our plants were sprouting. The picture below shows the seed coat splitting open and the plant sprouting from the seed.

October 17 (evening)

On Thursday morning, the students where surprised to see leaves!  Some of the students said that our plants looked like four leaf clovers.  The class learned that the leaves that they saw are the plant's seed leaves.  They thought it was cool that the leaves that first emerge were actually contained inside tiny seeds!

Today the students noticed that our plants are growing taller and taller!  They also noticed that true leaves are starting to emerge from the stem.  They even noticed that some of the seed coats were still attached to the true leaves.  CJ compared the seed coat spitting open to a caterpillar busting out of its chrysalis to become a butterfly.  The students are all curious as to when we will begin to see buds and yellow petals!

We hope that you will come by and see our Brassica rapas and all of the things we have been learning about plants at Open House tomorrow night!

October 22:


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Wednesday, October 17

Tonight in my graduate class, we played around with Voki.  I thought it would be cool to post one here!
What We Will Learn Today- October 17

Planting Day!

The temperatures may be falling outside, but it's planting time in Miss Powers' classroom! Yesterday we began a unit on plants provided by AMSTI. My students were excited to observe a dry bean seed and a soaked bean seed and compare the two. They were shocked to find out what the inside of a seed looks like, and that each seed contains an embryo which has all of the plant parts enclosed in it. They were thrilled to learn that they were going to become botanists and observe their own plants grow over the next few weeks!


The students were divided into pairs to partner read about the plant that we are growing- the Brassica rapa, also called the Wisconsin Fast Plant. They learned that these seeds were specially developed to grow very quickly, and that they would be able to watch their entire life cycle. While they were discussing and learning about their plant, two pairs of students visited me at the teacher table to plant their seeds. The students did a wonderful job following directions while planting.
The students have already added many wonderful questions to our "Wonder Wall" about their plants. They are wondering how they will grow without sunlight? They are wondering how a flower will grow without something to pollinate it, and they are wondering how many days it will take to see their own plant sprout? I am so excited to watch my little botanists observe their plants as they develop. :)


Here are pictures of our planter quads and watering mats underneath our grow light!